Tuesday 24 February 2009

Coke romance

Here's a video my friend's and I made last Sunday coz we were bored outta our minds.



Narrator: Yan Jia Yi
Pianist: Rachel Liew (Me!!)
Camera man: Vincent Gan

Subtitles by Rachel, assisted by Vincent.

Here's the link to the same video on Youtube, just in case this one doesn't load.

Enjoy!!

Sunday 22 February 2009

Fermi energy. Ferm-shit.

Congratulate me, people.

After ten hours of working on my formal lab report, I have finally finished it.

Yes, I have heard many people telling me that lab doesn't hold much weightage in determining my CGPA and that I should not waste too much time on it, and its perfectly fine if I handed in slipshod work coz it won't matter much anyway, and spending ten hours on it is pure stupidity, as I can put that precious time to much better use, such as studying for my Physics, which apparently has the biggest influence on my CGPA.

But what the heck.

I'm a perfectionist when it comes to course work and assignments; I want to make my lab report flawless.

I even answered the uncompulsory bonus question at the end of the discussion!!!

A band diagram has valance and conduction bands. A Fermi level of an intrinsic semiconductor is located in the middle of the band gap; doping will make a semiconductor n-type or p-type. Show how the Fermi level changes in an n-type and p-type semiconductor and briefly discuss.

I had no freaking idea what the Fermi energy was. Heck, they don't even teach this kind of stuff in your first year of university!

All I knew that it was some kind of standardised energy level which gives the electrons some kind of mark to be promoted above this level to be eligible to finally graduate out of their nest and do the real work of conducting electrical current.

Or something of that sort. Don't quote me when it comes to academic stuff.

But I answered it in a quite professional manner, anyway.

Thanks to Wikipedia, intelligence, and a little creativity.

Yes, creativity.

All my faithful readers should probably know where my creativity usually takes me.

An A+ for my Lab?

Possibly. Maybe not.

P.S.: I was contemplating on posting my oh-so-creative answer here, but I can't, for fear of being accused of plagarizing from my own blog. Besides, Physics usually bore people to death. I don't want to be charged guilty of mass homicide.

Saturday 21 February 2009

Animal lovers

Animals that only eat plants are called herbivores. Humans that only eat plants are called vegetarians.

Animals that eat plants and other animals are called omnivores. Humans that eat plants and animals are called non-vegetarians.

Animals that eat humans are called man-eaters. Humans that eat other humans are called cannibals.

Animals that only eat other animals are called carnivores...

but...

Humans that only eat animals are called heart attack sufferers, obese people, gluttons, goners, un-health-conscious, and the list goes on.

There are special names for each and every kind of human dieters (heck, even humans that eat other humans are recognized in some way!!), except for my kind.

Why, oh why does the world discriminate us???

On behalf of all the meat-only-eaters of the world, I declare ourselves...

Animal lovers!!!!


"We love 'em, that's why we eat 'em!"

Wednesday 18 February 2009

The first trace of the aura of the final examinations...

It has finally come.

I first saw it. In the personal message of my room mate's MSN Messenger.

It simply says "Final is coming."

Vague as it seems, you and I know very well what that means.


*Can I kill myself now?*

Tuesday 17 February 2009

Rainbow

Here's a video clip my "What Is Cinema?" lecturer let us watch today.

If your internet connection is slow, please be patient as it loads. I assure you, it's worth the wait.

P.S. I wanted to upload the video here, but Blogger didn't allow me. =(

Sunday 15 February 2009

V-day

Orchard Road. Takashimaya. Isetan. Tangs. Novena. City Hall. Suntec City. Food court. Sashimi. VCD's. Movies on laptop.

Out of money.

Out.


Thursday 12 February 2009

The chioest lab I have ever seen

Check this place out:
Guess where this is??

This couch looks real comfy, huh? I could almost feel my skin on its soft texture, dozing off under the cool air conditioner.

Lookit. He's enjoying himself on the comfy chairs.

Guessed it yet?

It's the place where my lab was held yesterday.


Dammit. I wished the lecture theatre and tutorial rooms were like this.

Two students were assigned to a table (glass top table, mind you) and each of us were provided a laptop (get this - each student gets his/her own laptop!!!) and all we had to do was sit in those comfy chairs for three whole hours under the blissful air conditioning.

We were using some funny program called ChemDraw, where we could use the computer to draw 3D images of different types of molecules, so that we could have a better idea of how they looked like.

I wished I had the chance to try out the sofa, though.

***

Valentine's Day.

MAE gave out free Mc Chicken burgers to all MAE students who wore red.

Woo hoo!!!

And then, K and I got a whole box of free Ferrero Rocher chocolates (30 chocolates per box) for free just for signing up for some competition. It didn't even matter that we didn't win, we were all too happy for the chocolates.

Here it is:

Jealous? No?

Haha.

I love MAE!!!!

Tuesday 10 February 2009

The Bad Morning

After one and a half semesters studying in NTU, I have finally come to the sad realisation that for the next three and a half years studying here, I am probably going to wake up to only two kinds of mornings. The ordinary morning, and The Bad Morning.

My ordinary morning goes something like this:
Rachel snoozes the alarm clock for about five times before dragging her sleepy ass out of bed just 30 minutes before lecture starts. She takes a quick shower, gets dresses, and enters the lecture theatre 5 minutes late.

That's my ordinary morning.

My Bad Morning is pretty much the same, with a few more misfortunes thrown in.

Rachel's typical Bad Morning goes something like this:
Version 1:
Rachel snoozes her alarm clock ten times, and then wakes up five minutes before lecture starts. Horrified, she jumps out of bed, changes her clothes, and rushes to lecture.

Version 2:
Rachel snoozes her alarm clock ten times, and then wakes up five minutes before lecture starts. She jumps out of bed, rushes to the bathroom, just to find that the water heater isn't working. She shivers under the shower for a full ten minutes, rushes to lecture, and then falls asleep in the lecture theatre.

As you can probably guess, today was one of my Bad Morning's day.

Extra bad.

I woke up feeling awfully sleepy, trudged to the bathroom, only to find that the water heater wasn't working. I put my clothes back on and walked all the way to K's room with a heavy backpack, hoping that at least the water heater there would work. K wasn't in, and so I had to walk all the way back to my own room, still with the heavy backpack. Then, I shivered under the shower for 5 minutes, accidentally dropped my towel onto the wet floor, and then shivered for another 5 minutes.

Then, I had to put on my clothes onto my wet body because my towel was too wet to dry myself with.

Great morning I had.

The only times I wake up from my sleep feeling great is on Sundays when I sleep in until 3 p.m. in the afternoon, after which I will say to myself, "Rise and shine, Rachel!! What a wonderful morning this is!"

Never, ever, ever wish me Good Morning or I will by all means kill you.

Thursday 5 February 2009

2009. Great year.

2009 must be my unlucky year.

1st January 2009. I arrived back at 6 a.m. coz I was out celebrating New Year's Eve. In a moment of blurriness (It was six in the friggin morning and I still wasn't asleep, mind you), I slumped onto my bed and by the time I woke again at 1 p.m., I officially lost my watch.

A few weeks ago, my printer cartridge went out on me. My Epson printer has 4 ink cartridges: cyan, yellow, magenta, and black.

As it turns out, blood sucking Epson manufacture their printers in such a way that if one color goes out, your printer pretty much won't print anything else. So even though the document you want to print is entirely in black ink and the color that ran out was yellow, the printer won't print.

Sucks, right?

My advice: Never, ever, ever, ever buy Epson printers ever again.

So, off I went to the computer shop, where it sells all sorts of imitation ink cartridges for all types of printers, except for mine. Apparently, my printer is so 'high-end' that you have to get genuine ink cartridges for it. So, I spent $17 for the stupid yellow ink. I got an extra black cartridge, as a spare.

When I fitted my genuine Epson yellow ink cartridge into my printer, my printer couldn't 'read' it and hence, it was an unknown cartridge, and being the 'high-end' printer it is, it just wouldn't work with 'unknown ink cartridges'.

So high-class. Must have genuine stuff only can work one. *scoffs*

After some effort of switching on and off my printer several times and waiting for a few hours, the printer finally acknowledged the ink cartridge as a genuine one and finally complied.

BUT!!!!

The black ink couldn't come out smoothly and my lecture notes had words which were half wiped out.

So I cleaned the printer head a few times until the ink came out smoothly. In the process, I used up the other colors as well so that I had to go to the computer shop again to get more genuine ink cartridges, or else the printer wouldn't print.

I spent like $60 just on my genuine Epson ink cartridges alone.

Have to stress more on the 'genuinity', coz that's the only thing my printer will work with.

After my printer problem was solved, my mouse died on me and again, I had to go to the computer shop to get a new one.

I bought a wireless mouse which cost $29.90.

Which, as you can already anticipate, didn't work, even after I bought it fresh Energizer Lithium batteries which cost $9.90.

I went right back to the shop with the receipt. I topped up an additional $10 and got a new $39.90 mouse.

It finally worked.

One day later, I left my room key on the shuttle bus and I was key-less for the entire weekend. My room mate even had to hide her keys in my shoes so that I could get in when I got back, coz she wasn't in.

On Monday, I went to the office to report my lost key and got a new one, with a fine of $10.

On the same day, I found that I lost three of my bras.

Tuesday morning, I went to the office to report for lost items. The same guy attended to me, and I'm pretty sure he was thinking "My gosh, she lost her key the day before and here she comes again telling me she lost her underwear. I bet she's gonna return again tomorrow telling me she lost her brain."

The guy even remembered my name and address from the previous key incident.

It went something like this:

I walk into the office.
Guy behind the counter who replaced my lost key on Monday: Oh?
Me: Err... I want to report my lost clothes.
GBTCWRMLKOM: Oh, when did you lose them and how?
Me: I'm not sure how I lost them, but I think they got stolen coz I can't find them anywhere else.

GBTCWRMLKOM proceeds to ask me lots of questions about when I last saw them, etc etc. Which was also how it was revealed to him that the clothes I was talking about was actually my three bras.

GBTCWRMLKOM: Thanks. Your name please?
Me: Rachel.
GBTCWRMLKOM: Liew, right?

See!!! He remembered my name from the key incident. How embarrassing.

Me: Uh... Yeah...
GBTCWRMLKOM: Whats your address? You stay at block 41, level 6, right?
Me: Yeah...
GBTCWRMLKOM: What color are your lost bras?
Me: Red, pink, and beige.

I could remember the colors so well coz they were new. My mother just bought them for me three months ago. Not to mention, they cost RM 50 each.

Which goes to say that 2009 is a terribly unlucky year for me, coz I've faced so many misfortunes, and its only February.

P.S.: I bought four new bras today (three actually, it was "buy 3 get 1 free"), and they cost me $180.

P.P.S.: I bought a new Baby-G watch last week. Only $118!!! Whee!!!!

Sunday 1 February 2009

Kevin's birthday

Today is Kevin's birthday.

Happy 19th birthday to you, Kevin!!!

Bought a tiny cake for him yesterday, and then today, we went to the Science Centre for some childish fun.

I know the Singapore Science Centre is mainly catered for kids from ages 6 to 13 and a university student like me should not be wasting my money re-learning elementary science stuff (especially when I'm confusing myself with Quantum Physics, but the Singapore Science Centre tells me F=ma), but it's still kinda fun to be able to try out the simple yet cool experiments I only ever learned in theory many years ago.

Like how sound waves travel through a tube so that you can hear your friend's voice 5 metres away.

Or how an extremely strong magnetic field (say, 3.5 million volts kind of strong) conducts electricity, even in air.

Besides, there are some stuff there that I never really did get around to thinking about.

Ha, ha.

Then, we went to the Omni-Theatre for a sort of 3D kind of educational movie, where the screen fits about half of the entire theatre room.

The title of the 'movie' is Wild Ocean. Or something along the lines of that. Can't really remember. It's about dolphins, birds, seals, and human beings all preying on sardines.

By the end of the show, you'd pretty much be pitying the sardines coz there's practically nowhere for them to run.

Sucks to be a sardine.

Btw, did you know that the Science Centre is only 5 freaking minutes' walk from the Jurong East MRT station? Damn freaking website told us to take the 335 bus from the Jurong East MRT station and made me waste $1.00, when we could have just walked.

Sheesh.

After dinner, we did this glass deco art thingy...

Aiya, dunno how to explain lah. Show you picture:


I know it's kinda childish, but what the heck.

This is the first time in my 19 years of living that I've done something like that.

Sometimes, I wished I were born later coz the stuff kids do nowadays are just so awesomely amazing compared to those SNES games I played when I was young.

Why is it that Mattel expands Barbie's wardrobe at the exact same moment I decided I was too old for dolls?

Sigh.

To top it all off, 3 of my bras were stolen.

They were only less than 4 months old, and my mother bought them for RM 50 each.

Fuck those thieves; they think my daddy fucking owns Victoria's Secret???